A chronicle of my gaming adventures and misadventures with a little bit of everything occasionally tossed in. It covers Flames of War, Warhammer 40k and Fantasy battle, Disposable Heroes, Sky galleons of Mars, Chasepot and Needle Gun, The Sword and the Flame, Warhammer Ancients and many others.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

WWII Flames of War Early War Eastern Front

I managed to get some Early War Flames of War gaming in. We are waiting on the new Barbarossa early war eastern front book so I took a Soviet list from the Poland Invaded pdf and Krovar took a German list from the Blitzkrieg book.

The Soviet Horde. I took three Strevkovy platoons, one with twenty stands, a second with twenty stands and a maxin hmg and a ten stand one with two maxin hmgs. I had a plan but in hindsight I should have taken the two maxim withe larger platoons. With the command section I used two Sniper teams, a machine gun company, an anti tank company, a four tube artillery battalion, three DsHk anti air trucks, and last the I-153 "Seagull".

Jerry W took a infantry platoon, four tube artillery six panzer III, three Panzer II and a single Panzer I.

We rolled the scenario that let up us deploy in depth so I spread the horde out and party a twenty model Strevkovy platoon on the objective and the machine gun company on the rear objective. I also placed the 45mm antitank guns in Ambush.

The Germans spread out and then took the first turn.

The German artillery ranges in.

The Infantry took three hits that needed saving and my first three rolls of the game, all ones.

The fourth save of the game and another one. It didn't look very promising.

The Artillery battalion rolls on from reserves.

The I-153 arrives and smoke a command Panzer II. Jerry W had neglected to add any sort of anti-aircraft to his list so the Seagull would have friendly skys for the game.

As the Germans advance on the forward objective, I revealed the 45mm anti tank guns ,from ambush, on the railroad embankment and fire at the German armor. With little result.

The German armor moves into assault range.

After several rounds of combat the troops kill the Commissar and run from the combat. Since they were below half strength I removed them from the table then made the Wave attack roll. I passed the test and a second company formed up for the second wave.

The Seagull arrives again and zeros in on the German armor. It managed to destroy a Panzer II.

The second wave runs toward the objective.

The German armor moves up to machine gun down the horde.

The company takes fifteen hits and I save all but four.

The Germans assault the pinned down company.

The infantry try to counter attack, and the commissar kills a stand but they still run.

The infantry moves up into assault position but end up pinned by the German defensive fire.

End Game, The soviets just didn't have enough to stop the German Armor.

I learned several things in this game. One is that regular Soviet infantry needs some support to assault tanks and win, I need more mobility to make a play for the opponents objective and having no observers for the Soviet artillery sucks. How do I take care of the shortcomings? To add mobility to the list I need to pick up enough T-26 tanks so I can field a unit of them. to help in the tank assault I may add a unit of sappers. with their Tank assault 3 it will add a little more teeth to the defense. I am thinking about dropping the four gun artillery battalion from the list. Until I can get an observer team for the artillery I may have to leave then at home. Everything is still in flux and I will have a new plan next game.